Simon rescued the bottle from which Hoppy was endeavouring to fill some of the vacua which had defied the best efforts of Chicago’s bar-tenders, and poured himself a modest portion.
“We now have,” he said, “a certain problem.”
“Dat’s right, boss,” Hoppy agreed.
He waited hopefully for the solution, experience having taught him that it was no use trying to compete with the Saint in such flights of speculation. A man without intellectual vanity, he was content to leave such scintillations to nimbler minds. Also this saved overloading his own brain, a sensitive organ under its osseous overcoat.
“The question is, who knows how much about what?” said the Saint. ‘‘If anyone at that cocktail party is connected with the King of the Beggars, I might as well walk barefooted into a den of rattlesnakes as show up to claim my reservation at the Elliott Hotel. But by the same token, if I don’t show up, I’m announcing that I have reasons not to — which may be premature.”
“Yeah,” Hoppy concurred, with the first symptoms of headache grooving his brow.
“On the other hand,” Simon answered himself, “if the ungodly are expecting me tomorrow, they won’t be expecting me tonight, and this might be a chance to keep them off balance while I case the joint.”
“I give up,” said Mr Uniatz sympathetically.
The Saint paced the room with long, restless strides. He was at a crossroads before which far more subtle strategists than Mr Uniatz might well have been bewildered, with the signpost spinning over them like a windmill. Simon even felt his own cool judgment growing dizzy with its own contortions. He was in a labyrinth of ifs and buts to which there seemed to be no key...
Mr Uniatz pinged BBs monotonously through his teeth at the electric light, drawing from it the clear, sharp notes of repeated bull’s-eyes.